May Reset

Is anyone else feeling like it's New Year's Day all over again? Spring is kind of a moody slog for most of us, and I am definitely ready to shake off that feeling. Before moving forward though, I'd like to thank Fringe Association again for choosing my L'Arbre Hat pattern for their second Hatalong. I decided to join in and knit one using Zealana Yarns Kauri. I blog for Zealana as well and you can read my post on yarn selection here.

I used a really clever 1 x 1 Ribbing cast-on that I learned from my friend and mentor Norah Gaughan. You can see her use it in her Creativebug Cabled Hat Class. I've also done some Creativebug classes if you're looking for a new project. I knit the ribbing on a US size 6, a common technique that somehow didn't make it into this pattern (you'll see that mistakes are a theme with this one...)

I started my hat with Zealana Kauri K13 Ashen, a lovely dove gray-blue. I often knit in the semi-dark while watching movies or television and...well, when I ran out of yarn, I accidentally grabbed K01 Natural to finish the crown shaping. When I noticed my error in daylight, I actually decided that I really loved the subtle colorblocked effect. While I was knitting the last few rows I discovered ANOTHER tiny error (sigh): Rnd 1 of the crown shaping should read *K1, s2kp2, k1, p3..." to maintain the garter pattern. I also worked Rnd 14 as ssks because I thought it looked better than the k2tog I originally called for. WTH, past me?

You might not know this but patterns for books and magazines are tech edited, but usually not test knit. Test knitting is a relatively new phenomenon in the knitwear design world, most commonly used by indie designers. Knitting up this hat showed me the value of test knitting, and while it's often not possible within the time constraints of traditional publishing, it's clearly a valuable process.

Moving on to new business! It's been a busy year for me so far, but most of the work is sadly behind the scenes, to be revealed later this year. Much of it forced me to set aside fun projects like the Loro KAL. A handful of really great Loros have been finished, and I'm hoping to get mine done in the next few weeks as well, in time for TNNA. I've decided to work a cropped version (read more here), so I feel like that's a reasonable goal. Fingers crossed!...